new mission concept could bring previously unaccessible Martian landing sites within reach,
say its creators at the Planetary Science Institute (PSI). This could mean landings in vast canyons,
on dormant volcanoes or other locations that rovers can't reach.
The concept is called MARSDROP and it would tag along with a bigger, primary Martian mission. The vehicle would be tiny—adding less than 5% to the cost of a major mission—and would provide more landing opportunities for a single Mars shot, PSI added.
To get to the surface, MARSDROP would use an aerodynamic feature called a parawing, which would give it better steering capabilities than traditional parachutes. The design calls for MARSDROP to reach a target within a few tens of meters, should its video navigation work as planned.
“In addition, MARSDROP can help lay the groundwork for future human exploration of Mars by characterizing biohazards like Martian dust and assessing the availability of key resources, such as water from which oxygen and rocket propellant can be made," stated Rebecca Williams, a senior research scientist at PSI who is working on the project.
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| How MARSDROP would make it to the Martian surface. Image credit: Planetary Science Institute, NASA |
While landers have been exploring the surface of Mars for 40 years, scientists are itching to do more. The traditional big missions only happen once every couple of years, at best, and if you lose a landing chance that can set research far back. This has happened several times, such as with NASA's Mars Polar Lander and the European Space Agency's Beagle 2 spacecraft.
Additionally, a big mission requires a big parachute or landing system, which limits the areas in which the lander can be placed on the Martian surface. At the altitude of a Martian volcano, for example, the air is too thin. And in a hilly area, a rover may have trouble getting around or at worst, get stuck.
Small missions are becoming more common in space exploration these days, notably with CubeSats, small 10 cm cubed satellites. Powerful microelectronics and cameras allow these missions to do more than what could have been possible even a decade ago. And with the idea tested in Earth orbit, scientists are itching to bring the small mission idea to other planets.
MARSDROP, if it were to go forward, would only be about 30 centimeters in diameter and weigh one kilogram, which would force instruments to be small and efficient. But in that small space, scientists are proposing to pack on cameras, microscopes and other instruments that could search for signs of organic materials (the building blocks of life) or tell us more about the Martian surface, for example.
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Visualization of Valles Marineris on Mars based on Mars Odyssey data. This could be a candidate landing area for MARSDROP. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University
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The PSI mission (which is not yet fully developed or approved) represents just one of a few novel proposals lately to explore the Red Planet.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is proposing a "Mars helicopter" that could act as a scout for rovers, looking for the best areas to explore. JPL said the rovers could triple their potential driving distance every day with the help of a flying companion, since engineers would have more precise information about the terrain.
To better guage the Martian landscape in 3D, JPL and Microsoft are co-developing technology that would transform the Curiosity rover's images into 3D. Called OnSight, this would allow scientists to virtually walk alongside the rover and identify potential mission targets as Curiosity searches for signs of habitability.
For now, though, the planned and (at least mostly) funded landing missions to Mars remain big and robust. NASA has another rover planned called Mars 2020, while the European Space Agency will launch two ExoMars landing missions in 2016 and 2018. The first will be a simple probe to ride with the Trace Gas Orbiter, while the second will be a rover.
Credit: Elizabeth Howell, News Writer
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